Fi­nally, a com­pre­hen­sive look at the life and work of Tan Sri P. Ram­lee, in a doc­u­men­tary that of­fers in­sight­ful views on the leg­end.

THE month-long ap­pre­ci­a­tion of Tan Sri P. Ram­lee on Astro en­ti­tled Di Mana Kan Ku Cari Ganti (Where Can I Find A Re­place­ment?, a plain­tive tune from his great song­book) will cul­mi­nate with a first ever ma­jor doc­u­men­tary on the le­gendary en­ter­tainer on the chan­nel His­tory this Sun­day.

The most-awaited orig­i­nal pro­duc­tion on the un­for­get­table Malaysian star, P. Ram­lee, was un­veiled to the me­dia last week and it brought laugh­ter and tears to those present at the pre­view.

We all know about P. Ram­lee, the inim­itable, charis­matic and mul­ti­tal­ented ac­tor, singer, co­me­dian, song­writer, screen­writer and film di­rec­tor who cap­ti­vated his au­di­ence with his tal­ents and charm­ing per­sona in the 1950s and early 60s.

The ac­com­plished mu­si­cian and com­poser from Pe­nang, whose real name was Teuku Zakaria Teuku Nyak Puteh, played the ukulele, pi­ano, vi­o­lin, trum­pet, gui­tar and ac­cor­dion. He di­rected and acted in 66 fea­ture films and had more than 350 songs to his credit

many of them huge hits by those days’ stan­dards win­ning awards lo­cally and in­ter­na­tion­ally.

Be­hind those ex­tra­or­di­nary tal­ents ad­mired around the re­gion, most peo­ple don’t re­ally know what he was like in pri­vate.

P. Ram­lee, pro­duced by Pes­ona Pic­tures and di­rected by Datin Paduka Shuhaimi Baba, gives a rare in­sight into the man who con­tin­ues to cap­ture the hearts of many long af­ter his un­timely death on May 29, 1973, aged 44.

The doc­u­men­tary no­tably show­cases ex­clu­sive footage of heart­warm­ing in­ter­views with peo­ple who have since passed away, such as the love of his life, Puan Sri Saloma, his son Nasir, and close friends and stars Datuk Ah­mad Daud and Datin Saa­diah.

Also in­ter­viewed were Sazali, Mar­i­ani and Aziz as well as vet­eran ac­tresses Datuk Sarimah Ah­mad and Hashimah Yon.

Shuhaimi and her team at Pes­ona had been plan­ning to doc­u­ment P. Ram­lee’s work for a long time – 12 years to be ex­act.

“We started our re­search in 1998 by talk­ing to his friends and fam­ily and those who had worked closely with him. We thought it might come in use­ful for fu­ture ref­er­ences, since there wasn’t any doc­u­men­tary done on Tan Sri P. Ram­lee be­fore,” the 59-year-old di­rec­tor told news­men af­ter the doc­u­men­tary’s screen­ing at Hil­ton Kuala Lumpur.

“That’s how we man­aged to speak to the late Datuk Ah­mad Daud, Datin Saa­diah and also Nasir, who was very ex­cited about the project. Un­for­tu­nately, Nasir didn’t live to see this doc­u­men­tary to­day,” she said. (Nasir passed away in De­cem­ber

My fa­ther, the leg­end: Sazali Ram­lee is one of the fam­ily mem­bers in­ter­viewed in P. Ram­lee – a 90-minute doc­u­men­tary on the late star to be screened on His­tory over Astro on Sun­day.

‘We started our re­search in 1998,’ says Datin Paduka Shuhaimi Baba.

Mar­i­ani Is­mail is happy that there’s now a proper doc­u­men­tary on her brother-in-law.